


Exception Handling

by deltatime



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alcohol, Bottom John Sheppard, Cunnilingus, F/M, Light BDSM, Multiple Orgasms, Orgasm Control, Orgasm Delay, Pegging, Service Top, Sex, Top Samantha Carter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:01:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29966784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltatime/pseuds/deltatime
Summary: Sam gives John something he needs.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/John Sheppard
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Exception Handling

**Author's Note:**

> 96% introspection & pornography, 4% speculation on what kind of code McKay writes.

In some ways, Sam relished the time she gets to spend at Midway Station. The IOA was spending the money to do everything right the first time, so she had what felt like endless time. Bill was a mostly-steady workhorse and he did what she asked of him; they’d worked with each other long enough to know each others’ strengths and weaknesses. At the beginning of every workday, Sam gave him a task list and some pointers on how she wanted things done and then turned him loose. She created roadmaps; she figured out where the tricky, intricate places are that she’d have to work on before he can get there, and she came up with solutions he can manage by himself.

For example, everything to do with the macro McKay wrote fell into her lap. Sam thought McKay took special pride in writing code only he can understand. She felt awful for everyone who had to work with this shit on a daily basis, and even worse for the people who will have to work with _them_ down the line because they’ll have to reteach basic concepts to the graduates of the Rodney McKay School of Programming and that’s a level of hell that no one’s managed to deserve yet.

She understood what he’d written, usually, and she never touched it unless she absolutely had to. She’d rather her name not be linked to his code in any way. She did improve his error handling; his arrogance was blatantly obvious every time he `Console.Write`s _this should never happen_. She’d told him a thousand times. Every error that can happen, will happen, and errors in Stargate code can be (and have been) disastrous. He hadn’t changed his ways, but she couldn’t in good conscience let people (real human people, with families and friends and responsibilities) rely on McKay’s conviction that nothing he writes is ever wrong.

In some ways, Midway Station was the most boring thing she’d ever done in her life. She missed the field, missed the excitement, missed stepping onto a new planet every week. Midway was kind of a command, and the Air Force probably thought they’d given her a promotion, but she’d go back to SG-1 in a heartbeat. There were two dozen computer scientists at the SGC who could handle this work. There was no one else in two galaxies who had the experience she had.

It’s not totally strange, she rationalized, that she was hungry for some excitement. She spent ten years, more or less, with a constant drip of adrenaline hooked up to her arm, and now she was fixing artificial gravity fields. At least they weren’t stuck on the station; they were actually required to go to Atlantis every forty-eight hours because the food storage equipment hadn’t dealt well with the gravity fluctuations so there was no way to keep anything fresh cold.

The IOA wanted to send them a pallet full of MREs. Elizabeth, God love her, told them that was cruel and unusual, and she assigned them quarters.

Quarters were nice; even better than home. The chance of surveillance was significantly less than home, the sheets were nicer, and the HVAC was at least four times better. Quarters gave Sam a place to keep things behind a locked door, a place to _be_ behind a locked door.

It was the locked door that was dangerous. Locked doors meant no consequences. Anything that could stay locked up couldn’t impact her outside of the room. Everyone relaxed on their own time, privately, and no one judged anyone else for the reading material they indulged in on their time off.

The thing was that Sam didn’t want trashy romance novels. She wanted her heart rate up, not down.

That was where Sheppard came in. Sheppard needed to unwind from his time in the field in precisely the opposite way that Sam needed to wind herself up. They’d started very normally, with tequila Sam brought from home - the unique relaxation you could only get with someone of the same rank, with the same security clearance, from a different posting. They could share the struggles of their respective lives candidly. They each got to hear _I know how you feel_ and know that it was the truth and feel a little less alone in the universe.

The second time, Sam brought a fifth of really nice whiskey and John got _plastered_. It was all fun and games until John thought it was a good idea to tell her what he _really_ needed and Sam thought it was a good idea to tell him she could help with that. They woke up the next morning, her in her bed and John on the couch, with splitting headaches. After they got off-the-record IV hydration, John asked her “do you remember.” Sam said “yes” and that was it. John wouldn’t have brought it up if he didn’t still want it; he would have trusted her to forget if he regretted saying anything. She wouldn’t have said yes if she didn’t still want it, or if she didn’t plan on going through with it.

The next time she and Bill went to Earth to pick up supplies from the SGC, she made a stop at her house in addition to the laundry list of errands the Atlantis folks wanted her to run. Now that the Air Force wasn’t paying for every ounce of cargo put on the _Daedalus_ , Landry was more willing to turn a blind eye to an extra crate sent through the Stargate once in a while. It was good for expedition morale to have some beer from home sometimes.

Not that she trusted the crate for _this_. She barely trusted her own bag, even though none of her personal items had ever been searched or tallied. Even if they were, she’d probably get away with just a supremely awkward look from whatever poor airman had been roped into being intergalactic TSA that day.

Forty-eight hours later, in Atlantis, she settled the dildo and the harness on her bedside table and another bottle of whiskey on the dresser. There was a choice there for John, laid out plain: she’d only do this if they were both sober.

John was late. Later than she expected, at least; they hadn’t ever discussed a time. When he finally did knock on her door she was almost impatient when she said “come in.” The doors slid open and John had started in on his latest round of complaints when he noticed the options available to him and stopped short.

He didn’t say anything inane like “are you serious” or “are you sure” or even “wow.” He just walked over to the dresser and put the liquor in a cabinet.

“I’ve done this before,” she told him. She felt like she had to say _something_. “I assume you’re tested for everything that’s got a test.”

“And then some. I’m told I’m negative for things we haven’t even heard of.”

“Same for me. I’m also on birth control. Anything else I should know?”

“No pain,” John said, and that was a surprise. She hadn’t had the pleasure of doing this very often, but it’d always been accompanied by at least a little spanking. It must have shown on her face, because he followed that up with “unless… you want?”

“It’s never been the important part for me. Usually has for other people, though.” It was like she was walking up the gate ramp again, going on an adventure to God-knows-where, and it was so _good_. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Then strip.”

John took off his clothes quickly and efficiently. He hesitated once he has his pants off, like he was thinking about folding them, and Sam was uncomfortably reminded of a gynecologist visit. She didn’t think the _sex_ was really what he needed, but _gynecologist’s office_ is so not the mood she wanted to set. She grabbed for his wrists to stop him and kissed him.

It was a weird first kiss, as far as first kisses went. John didn’t expect it, for one, and she caught him with his mouth half-open in a not-at-all sexy way. He recovered quickly, though, and he proved himself to be a talented kisser. Sam nipped at his lip gently and broke away.

She brought her hands to his neck and brushed her thumbs against the muscles there. His skin prickled under her touch, goosebumps over steel-strong tendons and ligaments. She slid her palms to his shoulders and pressed down gently but firmly, an invitation more than an order. 

She stepped back so the backs of her knees touched the bed, and John went to his knees at her feet slowly. Almost reverently, his hands came to her waistband. His knuckles brushed her belly; even through her shirt the touch made the muscles there contract involuntarily. He unbuckled her belt and undid her pants while she took off her shirt and bra. He hooked his thumbs into her waistband and waited for her to nod before he took off her pants and underwear.

Sam sat on the bed, parted her legs, and put a hand in John’s hair. “Go slow,” she told him. He put his hands on the tops of her thighs and kissed the inside of her knee.

His mouth was warm and wet as he mouthed up her leg to the crease of her thigh, then skipped across to her other leg. She traced her fingers down his jaw as he went; he was pretty, a little scruffy, and the corner of his jawbone was set at a near perfect angle. She tried to measure the slant with her fingers.

John kissed back up her leg but this time he didn’t skip over the dark blonde curls between her thighs. She could feel his hot breath on her skin before he kissed over her clit. She gasped and braced her hands behind her. She couldn’t trust herself not to put a hand in his hair; if she did that she was sure she’d pull, and he said he didn’t want any pain.

He slid his arms up outside of her thighs and put his hands on her hips. She hooked one knee over his arm and rested her heel in the middle of his back. It was a compromise with putting a hand in his hair; she’d have less direct control but there was no chance she’d hurt him unintentionally this way. He shifted on his knees, settling in, and kissed down until his mouth is over her opening; as asked, he went slow.

Then he pressed his tongue against her and licked back up to her clit, hesitating for just an extra moment at the top to tease her before starting again from the bottom.

“More,” she said after he did the same thing twice more. She was aching for it now, and she moaned when he closed his lips around her swollen clit. He was still extraordinarily gentle and slow as he started to suck and lick.

It was sweetly good and Sam leaned back and enjoyed the attention for a while. But she would rather have come at least once before she fucked him, and this wasn’t going to do it.

“Use two fingers,” she told him, “and keep doing that with your tongue.” He took his hand from her hip and slid two fingers into her. It was easy - she must have been soaking wet, and getting wetter by the minute from the way his long fingers feel curled gently inside her.

“Fuck me a little.” He obliged and it was so, so good, with his tongue on her clit and the slick slide of his fingers as he thrusted gently but with the full length of them. “Faster.” He flicked his tongue a little harder, a little faster, and increased the pace with his hand.

_That_ was going to be enough to make her come if he kept that up. She let her head fall back while he worked. The buildup is slow and sweet; she could see the edge of the cliff a hundred yards off and she crushed the urge to tell him to go faster again because it would be better if she was at least a little patient.

She didn’t warn him that she was close, just let herself fall off the edge with a gasp. She could feel the way she clenched around his fingers, could feel his nearly-voiceless groan against her clit. It was nice in a take-the-edge-off way. She would be able to concentrate on him for a while instead of the throbbing between her legs.

Sam let him lick her through the aftershocks, then shifted back on the bed and hooked his shoulder with her ankle to pull him up too. He came with an acutely hungry look in his eye. She wondered what it would be like to let him fuck her like he was thinking about right then. She might ask for her turn one day.

“Take those off,” she told him, waving a hand toward his underwear. She caught a glimpse of his cock as he shimmied them down off his hips and did some amusing contortion to get them off entirely. It was pretty damn rare that Sam thought a cock was genuinely attractive on its own, but John had been the exception to all kinds of different rules. She wasn’t entirely surprised that this was one of them. 

She might not be able to wait until next time to get her hands on him, both metaphorically and literally.

“Hands and knees work for you?” she asked.

“Yeah. Or on my back.”

She thought about it. The view would have been better if he was on his back, and she would have had a better chance of getting his prostate. But he said he wanted it hard, and realistically, she didn’t have the upper body strength to hold his legs up and open long enough to give it to him how he wants.

“Hands and knees, this time.” With infuriatingly easy grace (how did he look artfully lazy even when he was hard enough to pound nails) he got himself settled. “Spread your legs a little. Get down on your elbows. There, good. Don’t move,” she instructed. There was thick lube on the nightstand and she spread some on her fingers to warm it up.

While it warms, she nudged John’s knees apart a little further and settled herself between his calves. She put her unlubed hand on his lower back and pressed the pad of one lubed finger to his entrance. He opened up easier than she remembered this being, like it was nothing when she sunk into the second knuckle. He sighed. She bit the inside of her cheek to focus.

Just as gently as John had with her, she added a little pressure to get the rest of her finger inside him. She let him adjust for a minute then slowly started moving inside him. He groaned and sighed as she figured out what worked best for him, and gave her an especially sweet _mmmph!_ when she brushed over his prostate.

She added another finger and gave him another minute to breathe. She had long since come to terms with a certain amount of penis envy but she’d never envied the necessity for preparation like this. It’s hot now, having a lieutenant colonel moaning on her fingers while she works him open, but there was no way to get this done quickly.

She scissored her fingers once, twice, and gently pressed them deeper. Her folded knuckles rested against his ass and he made an overwhelmed sound, high in his throat, and maybe coming once before wasn’t really going to be enough for her. She thrusted a few times, twisting her hand as she went, and then pressed her fingertips to his prostate and massaged. John groaned and his hips jumped; she had no doubt he was dripping on the sheets just then.

Two fingers was just enough prep for the strap-on she’d brought for him tonight. It was dead average in every dimension; maybe an eighth of an inch wider at its widest point than her two fingers, and just long enough to reach everything that matters without risking a bruise to her cervix. Not that a bruised cervix is a real risk in this case, but she thought when she was packing that what was comfortable for her would be comfortable enough for John.

Sam drew her fingers out slowly and slid off the bed. John watched her, his forehead sweaty and eyes dark and hot, as she picked up the harness and stepped into it. The leather was cool against her skin as she buckled the straps on her hips and thighs. The o-ring was already unsnapped on one side so she could just slip the dildo in and settle it against the harness over her pelvis.

It was hard to tell what, exactly, had John looking the way he did at the fake cock, whether it was the contrast of the leather against her skin or the jut of blue silicone or just the raw eroticism of it all. Sam considered for a second the idea of asking him to suck it. As pretty as that would be, John on his knees for her for the second time that night, she decided against it.

She grabbed the lube and the dildo bobbed in front of her as she walked back around the bed behind John. He dropped his head back down, waiting as patiently as he can, while she lubed the dildo and settled herself back between his calves. She nudged the tip of it against him and pulled his hips, gently but insistently, back towards hers.

“Oh, God,” John groaned.

“Okay?” Sam asked at the halfway point.

“Mmmmmyeah,” he managed to get out. His voice was tight with control. Maybe she should have taken the time to use a third finger; she could feel the resistance in her hips and thighs, knew how tight he was even without the direct sensory feedback, saw the way the muscles in his shoulders flexed and bunched with the effort of staying still and taking it.

It was hard to remember a time she’d been more turned on than when her hips came flush with his ass.

“Give me, give me a minute,” he said.

“Sure you’re okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine.” His teeth clicked together. “More lube?”

The tube had settled in to the depression on the bed between her knee and his. Sam reached down for it, unintentionally but unavoidably jostling the dick inside him. His moan was _broken_ in a way that made her more sure that this, that everything she had on offer, was something he needed.

She squeezed out a healthy amount onto her fingers, warmed it up, and pulled out almost all the way, as slowly as she’d pushed in. With just the tip of the cock inside John, she spread the lube on the rest of it and massaged the excess into the stretched skin of his asshole.

The combination of the adjustment period and the extra lube made it easier to slide home the second time. She wished she could feel for herself how hot and wet and tight he felt on the inside. She wondered if anyone ever had, if this was a kink or a substitute for something John couldn’t have for real. She’d never know the answer, didn’t really want to. There was dangerous knowledge and then there was _dangerous knowledge_.

She relished the feeling of his ass pressed snug against her hips and let him adjust a little longer. His thighs trembled a little against hers, hard muscle rendered shaky by exertion and pleasure and submission.

Sam gave him a little push-pull, just a test. He wanted her to call the shots and she would, just as soon as she was sure he wasn’t hurting in any way he didn’t want.

“Go for it,” he told her. She’d never heard his voice that low.

She checked her grip on his hips and gave him a good thrust. “You can ask nicer than that,” she said.

“Please go for it?” John tried.

“How about ‘please fuck me,’” she suggested, rocking against him once more as a promise of what she could give him if only he would ask.

“Please fuck me, fuck,” he repeated.

She started with short strokes to refamiliarize herself with the movement as well as ease him into it. His head dropped and hung loosely between his gradually-unclenching fists, until she built up enough speed and force that he had to brace his forearms against getting fucked further up the bed.

“Like that, yeah,” he groaned out the first time her hips smacked against his ass. “Yeah, really hard, really deep, yeah, please -”

Who was she to deny him when he’d asked so nicely? She kneed his legs a little farther apart and gave it to him as best she could. His back shone with sweat in the partial darkness, making the muscle definition there stand out even more starkly than usual. She ran one hand from his hip up his spine as far as she could reach while maintaining the rhythm, dragging her fingernails just enough to be a teasing sensation rather than pain.

“Can you come like this?” she asked, breathless with arousal and exertion.

He was lost in it, making little moans and whines in place of a real answer to her question. If he’d processed it at all, which she doubted, she didn’t think he’d be able to put together an answer. It was validating in a way that made her want to squeeze fingers between the harness and her clit and let the motion of her hips rub her fingers against herself, let him feel the stutter of her hips as she orgasmed translated through the dildo.

Maybe another time. She’d crush her hand like that, fucking him the way he wanted.

“Can you -” she thrust deep and stayed there “- come like this?”

“No,” he said. Was that disappointment in his voice? “Not unless you touch me.”

“Is that what you want? To come with my cock in your ass and my hand on you?”

John made a noise that was almost a sob.

“You can have that, if you want. Just ask. Or I can choose.” She knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“You pick,” he said, muffled by the bed. Of course he’d leave it up to her; the unknown was the _why_ \- if he’d declined the decision because he for whatever reason couldn’t ask for what he wanted, or because he really wanted her to choose. He’d asked for her to take control and hadn’t specified why, and she’d thought about asking but the answer wouldn’t have changed anything anyway.

Sam thought about her options for a second. She’d done what he’d asked for - he’d gotten ordered around a little then fucked, really hard and really deep. He was fucked out, loose-limbed and sagging through his lower back in the way that only happened when you were relaxed and compliant and satisfied.

Well, maybe not _satisfied_. She’d fix that. She granted herself permission to be self-indulgent after a job well done.

“On your back,” she told him, pulling out. It took her several tries to unsnap the o-ring with slippery fingers, and by the time she had removed the dildo from the harness he had flipped over. His cock was dark red and straining against nothing; she wondered how little it would take to make him come. With that in mind she took her time positioning the dildo against his ass and pushing it in inch by inch.

His hips tilted a few degrees, looking for more. She thrust it into him hard a few times, watching the way his cock jumped with the impact. She repositioned herself so she was straddling his hips. She took his cock in one hand and lined him up at her opening, watched the tendons of his neck stand out when he felt how wet she was for him.

“You can come after I do. If I fuck you with this -” she twisted the dildo inside him and ground the base against him “- can you hold on for that long?”

“Depends how long that’s going to be,” he said through clenched teeth. God, he was already hanging by a thread.

“Not long.” Understatement. If she lasted more than two minutes she’d be surprised. “Are you going to be able to do this for me?”

He looked at her like she was personally responsible for hanging the moon and stars in the sky and nodded.

Slowly, to be mostly sure he wouldn’t come from it, she sank down on him inch by inch.

“Wait, stop,” he hissed, shaking hands going to her thighs. He dropped his head back against the bed and squeezed his eyes closed. “Just, oh God, give me a minute.” The visible struggle against orgasm was undeniably arousing; she toyed with the idea of _taking_ it from him. But that was cheating, in a way - changing the rules mid-game. 

“Okay,” he said finally. His eyes were still squeezed shut, his jaw still tight, but his hands had stopped shaking on her thighs. She slid down until she was seated fully on his lap. She tilted her hips forward and leaned back a few degrees, keeping the delicious angle of him inside her and reaching for the base of the dildo inside him. If she didn’t move too much, she could fuck him by hand and reach her clit at the same time.

Sam found her clit under the harness with her middle finger, circled it once, slipped off, found it again, anchored herself with her index and ring fingers. She gave him a few shallow thrusts with the dildo, then worked her clit, then both at once when she had the motion down. She had to concentrate on the dildo but muscle memory took over for the fingers on her clit and soon enough she could almost imagine she was fucking _herself_ with the dildo, from the way John’s cock jumped inside her every time she pushed it in deep. He put his hands on her thighs, fingers flexing maybe involuntarily as he tried to keep himself under control.

She could feel her inner walls try to suck him deeper as orgasm approached her. She hung right on the edge for what felt like _forever_ , stuck in the liminal space between coming and not-coming, split wide on him and waiting for the wave of pleasure to crash down on her, anticipating the gloriously overwhelming first contraction of orgasm. What finally tipped her over the edge was John’s hips stuttering up into her in a way he obviously wasn’t in control of, rubbing her inside in all the right ways.

She tightened on him and ground the dildo into him hard, her last coherent thought to make sure that he was right there with her. He fucked up into her as hard as he could and the pulses of his orgasm inside her sent her spiraling higher and higher, completely overtaken by pleasure and with every atom of her body seeking more, more, more.

It was explosive, mindblowing, and it lasted a lifetime. She floated down the other side, sated and satisfied and still twitching with the aftershocks. John was right there with her, spent dick pulsing weakly in her in response to every internal quiver. She let go of the dildo and slumped forward onto his chest, savoring the big warm maleness of him as well as the deep trust they had in each other.

They’d never tested it for real, not directly, but they would both trust each other with their lives. Now, even more significantly, they were trusting each other with their careers. No, trust wasn’t quite the right word - it was the knowledge of the cold hard fact that any ruination would be mutual, and there was deep safety in that.

She laid there with him softening inside her for a long time, until with one protracted uncomfortable slide he slipped out of her and the mood turned from afterglow to practicality. She rolled off of him and went to the bathroom, then grabbed a washcloth and wet it. After cleaning herself off, she rinsed the washcloth and took it back to John.

The dildo was still in him, perpetually hard. She eased it out of him and wiped the excess lube from his skin, then as gently as she could she cleaned the worst of the mess from his cock. She took the washcloth and the dildo back to the bathroom, setting both on the sink to take care of later.

She was still wearing the harness, she realized, and unbuckled it and left it on the bathroom floor. She had half a mind to clean up a little more thoroughly - if anyone came looking for either of them, it would be pretty obvious what they’d been up to. But she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and realized even if she threw all the physical evidence into the ocean, she had very obviously just had one of the best orgasms of her life. John was the same, sprawled on the bed with his hair stuck with sweat to his forehead and looking every inch the picture of sexual satisfaction.

Sam flopped back into bed with him and cuddled up close. She threw one arm over his chest and tangled a leg with his.

“So,” she said. “Everything you wanted?”

“It was okay,” he said noncommittally. 

She sat up and looked at him, and he looked back mischievously, a twinkle in his eye.

She thumped his sternum with the heel of her hand.

“Everything I wanted. And then some,” John admitted. “You?”

Sam settled back down, satisfied. “Oh, yeah.”

“Do it again sometime?” he asked, like he was offering lunch or a drink.

“I think I can make that work.” She’d take the good things she was offered while they lasted; the Midway Station was nearly done. They might get another romp or two in before she got pulled back to the Milky Way to work at Area 51, or go back to the Pentagon, or if she was lucky lead an SG team until she suffered the same promoted-to-boredom fate Jack had.

If she was _really_ lucky, maybe John’s career would follow similar lines.

\---

If she could have predicted the future, if she had known she was destined to be Atlantis’s leader, she probably would have done some things differently, but not _this_. 

_This_ was too damn good to regret.


End file.
